by Celia Kyle
Poking the Vamp
Kate saved him from dying (Again? He’s a vampire. She has no idea.) and Joce saved her from dying (by killing her). When she awakens as a vamp, she’s not sure it’s an even trade.
Joce Magli, vampire and Knight Protector, thinks of humans as food and nothing more. Until he meets Kate—doctor, savior, and most delicious woman he’s ever tasted. And don’t get him started on all her lush curves… She is his and when circumstances force his hand—when it becomes a choice between life and death—he claims her forever. Kate is his fire, his vampire mate, and then she’s actually on fire and there is the half-God trying to strangle her and… yeah, it’s been a bad day.
And it’s only going to get worse.
Chapter One
A hospital emergency room was not the place for an eight hundred-year-old vampire. Ever. It didn’t matter that Kate was related to the woman currently standing in the middle of the emergency room, looking as if she’d just stepped off a Paris runway. She was still a vamp in a building filled with injured humans.
Easy pickings…
Dog tired, feet aching, and body pushing through her fatigue, Kate Bennett slowly made her way toward the statuesque woman. Before seeing the vamp, she’d looked forward to finishing the last two hours of her shift and then she had a date with her BFF that included waffles and then a night in a warm bed. Alone. Lola was her BFF but they weren’t that close.
Until she saw Galla.
All hints of exhaustion fled as adrenaline spiked in her veins.
Kate hadn’t anticipated seeing the woman for at least another six months. Like clockwork, Galla appeared on her doorstep on Kate’s birthday. Typically decked out in the latest European fashions and layers of jewels. She would blow into Kate’s home, make herself comfortable, and then they’d exchange blood. Well, Galla would prick her finger and give a droplet to Kate.
This timeless woman was two things to Katherine: 1) her grandmother many times over (ages were never ever discussed) and 2) a vampire. Vampiress? Regardless of what she was called, she’d long ago charged herself with looking after the Bennett family line. For some reason, she focused on Katherine in particular.
Galla had never given her a definitive reason as to why. But the woman had fangs so Kate wasn’t about to push. She also never understood why giving her a droplet of blood each year kept her “safe.” Galla’s words, not Kate’s.
Of course, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in the world that could threaten her.
There were vampires, obviously. Everyone knew of them, as well as shifters, though Kate’s only experience with the supernatural was her grandmother. As far as she knew, anyway. From her understanding, vamps and shifters were pretty bad ass and didn’t need a doctor’s services.
“What—” Kate swallowed hard and took a step forward. “Is something wrong?”
The vampire smiled widely, putting on a happy face, but she could see the strain and worry that lingered in the woman’s features. “No, dearling. I happened to be in the area on business and wanted to visit you before I returned to my homeland.”
Lie.
Galla didn’t step out of Italy but once a year, and that was to visit Kate. Otherwise, she holed up with her friend Adela in Rome doing… whatever ancient vamps did.
“Oh. Why don’t we…” Kate scrambled to think of somewhere private they could talk. Looking at the head nurse, she gave the woman a small smile. “We’ll be in George’s office. Page me if something comes up.”
Without waiting for a response, Kate reached out, took Galla’s hand, and led her down a nearby hallway. The woman was a vampire, could snap her like a twig, but Galla allowed herself to be dragged along. Normally, the elder vamp would huff at Kate’s uncouth behavior. Something had to be seriously wrong for Galla not to comment.
In moments, they were secure in the ER Director’s office, the solid wood door cutting them off from the rest of the world.
The beautiful, pale woman drifted through the room, slender hands alighting on different objects in the office. This was something Kate had long ago become used to. When Galla had something to say, something important, she took her time to gather her thoughts.
Unfortunately, that trait had not meandered its way through the family tree and down to Kate. She had turned impatience into an art form. “Galla?”
Her grandmother picked up a paperweight, something heavy and metal and… crushed as if it were no more than a slip of paper.
Okay. The vampire was pissed. Self-preservation kicked in and Kate froze, standing still as she waited for Galla to collect herself. Drawing the attention of a cranky vamp? Not a good idea.
Seconds ticked by, the analog clock on the opposite wall counting each one as it passed. After five minutes and twenty-two seconds of silence, her grandmother spoke.
“There is trouble, dearling.” Her grandmother’s original English accent pushed through this lifetime’s Italian inflections. The woman changed her history like Kate changed latex gloves. “We must do something different tonight. I must…” A visible shudder traveled through the vampire. “I usually give you one drop per year. One sip of my blood so others will know you are not for them.”
Galla gave Kate her full attention and she noticed the woman’s eyes were no longer their normal blue, but a deep, frightening red. “But there are some who aren’t listening any longer. They are,” her grandmother growled. “They’re breaking every law they can imagine and trying to return us to our former glory.”
Galla spat the last word, making her think glory was anything but. “They don’t understand there is no glory in the past. There’s today. Now.” Another growl escaped the vampire’s throat, but her grandmother cut it off. “I need one droplet of your blood today and another tomorrow.”
Kate gulped. “Because?”
“Because then I can find you if necessary.”
Panic teased the edges of Kate’s consciousness. “And it’d be necessary because?”
“It is safer if you don’t know more.”
The woman had barely told her anything, but since Galla’s eyes were still red, Kate didn’t contradict her. “Okay,” she licked her lips. “One drop today and one tomorrow?”
Galla nodded. “Yes. Right now, I can find you within a few miles. Today’s exchange will narrow that range further and tomorrow’s will always lead me to your door.”
“And it’s important?” She wasn’t sure why she had such a problem with giving the woman the ability to find her, but it creeped her out a little. Like, what if Galla tailed her to her non-existent boyfriend’s house and she busted in on Kate knocking boots?
Awkward.
“Very important.”
Kate took a deep breath and pushed down her growing nerves. “Okay.” Okay. “Lemme get a lancet to prick your finger and—”
Galla smiled widely, flashing her near-glowing white fangs. “No need, dearling. I have that covered.”
Ten minutes and one droplet of extra blood later, Galla strolled out of Devon General’s emergency room. Employees and patients none the wiser.
But Kate didn’t have a chance to delve into her overactive imagination and wonder what her grandmother’s visit meant. She didn’t get one second to think about any lurking dangers or the fact that Galla could now hunt her down.
Nope.
Because there was a sudden squawk on the nurse’s radio. They had a trauma coming in, hot, fast, and near dead by the sound of it.
In minutes, Life Flight landed a
nd her newest patient was delivered. Stats were shouted as she stepped up, one of the regulars rattling off his blood pressure and pulse along with a laundry list of noticeable injuries.
It was a long one.
“Franks!” She raised her voice above the din. “Tell me what’s not broken.”
The guy was just as anxious as she felt. Sometimes she just knew when a body was able to recover. Regardless of the damage, a look, a vibe, told her she’d be able to get this one back no matter how bad it looked.
She was so not getting that vibe from the man on the gurney.
“His nose, maybe?”
Right.
Kate jerked her head in a nod. “Okay, people. Let’s peel back the layers and see what this bad boy is hiding.”
The nurses jumped into action, two whipping out emergency scissors and working on the guy’s clothes. The surgical steel fought through his pants—leather from the looks of ’em—until his lower half was bared. Next they set sights on his shirt and jacket, letting the scraps fall where they may.
The minute she had skin, Kate went to work. Touching, wiping, pressing, and prioritizing what she saw. Some were obvious broken bones, several jagged cuts across his legs and up his thighs. Yet another over his abdomen and she didn’t doubt there was internal damage from that one. Blood pumped from the wound and she dove into her zone. It was that place where nothing touched her but the patient. She spoke and made demands and her crew met every one. There was nothing beyond their area, the world not existing outside their space.
She asked, they answered.
Kate danced in a sea of red, water replaced by the coppery, life-giving fluid.
Then the flow of blood slowed. The heavy river easing to a trickle. It could have been hours or seconds, but she and her team stabilized him. For now, there wasn’t the immediate threat of a bleed out or suffocation from collapsed lungs. ’Cause, God, he’d had two of those. At least they hadn’t gone out of commission at the same time.
Checking his monitors, she sighed. “Okay, guys. Get ahold of radiology and have them make room for Meat Grinder, here.”
That’s what she’d been calling him in her head. The man looked like he’d been run through one. They’d gone to work wiping away at the worst of the blood to find the spots weren’t overflow, but simply more wounds.
The guy was a mess in every sense of the word.
Immediate danger over, Kate was able to breathe and focus on her patient as a man and less as a bag of bones she had to sort through.
John Doe. Six feet, two inches. Approximately two hundred pounds. Age between thirty and thirty-five. Other than holes all over, no identifying marks. Shaved head. Blue eyes. She stepped toward his head and lifted his upper lip…
Oh. And vampire.
She jerked her hand away as if he were made of bubbling, burning acid. Okay, vampire. She wasn’t going to point out the fact that her vampire grandmother had just stopped by to do some weird blood exchange because of the “danger” and here he was. Nor would she address the issue of vampires never, ever coming to human hospitals for treatment. Ever.
They supposedly had their own thing going. She didn’t know of vamp hospitals, but even after they’d come out, vamps and shifters never stepped into her human domain. No way she was touching the fact that the guy had come in beat to hell when she knew vampires were super-fast, super resilient, and super hard to kill.
The guy had died on her table. Twice.
This was so far above her pay grade. And she got paid a lot.
Taking advantage of the brief moment of privacy, Kate reached for the tattered remains of his jacket and dug into the pockets in a search of identification. The first was empty, but the second netted her a small notebook. A quick flip through the pages didn’t give her a clue to the man’s identity, just that he happened to write very legibly. Huh. The other revealed a single slip of paper, a phone number jotted on the page with some sort of seal imprinted below the digits.
Well, it was the closest to an In Case of Emergency—ICE—as she was gonna get for the moment. No cell phone from this guy.
Clutching her findings, she stepped away from the gurney. Mostly. Almost even.
But… But something made her want to stay. Deep down, her body had some weird, visceral reaction to this vampire and it silently willed her to remain at his side. Her skin heated, not from exertion, but attraction.
Which freaked her out since the man was bloodied from head to toe and had tubes embedded in his skin.
Yet she couldn’t move away.
Kate took a step closer and she itched to strip off her gloves and stroke his bare skin. It’d be a mistake, but there was a part of her that assured her it’d be worth it. Just one touch…
She fingered the cuff of the glove on her empty hand and tugged on the latex. A single pull had it rolling from her hand in no time. Cool air blew over her heated hand and she wiggled her fingers. The tips tingled in anticipation and she reached for the vampire. Electric sparks seemed to flick between her skin and this stranger’s.
Inches loomed between her hand and the vampire’s cheek. She’d brush his cheekbone. That was all. He was relatively clean and she didn’t have any open wounds and vampires couldn’t transmit diseases and—
“Dr. Bennett.” Nurse Pain-In-My-Ass’ voice had Kate snatching her hand back to her side.
Chapter Two
Making a fist and begging her nerves to ease, Kate turned toward the nurse. “Yes?”
“Radiology is ready for him.” The woman’s expression was pinched, her brow furrowed with white lines forming around her lips. A small movement behind the nurse caught Kate’s attention and she saw two orderlies standing by. “We’ll get him cleaned up and then send him on his way.”
Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she stepped back. “Great. Have a good evening with Mr. Doe. I didn’t find any ICE information in his pockets”—liar—“so keep an eye out.”
Kate clutched the notepad and slip of paper like a lifeline. She didn’t care they were smeared with the owner’s blood. Nope. Not a bit. They were hers now. At least until the vampire woke and told her otherwise.
Stepping out of the patient’s area, she watched the orderlies get to work, packing up the guy and prepping him for intra-hospital transport. Refusing to second-guess herself, she turned to Nurse Pain-In-My-Ass. “Flag him for me. I want updates on his status.”
Ignoring the woman’s shock, Kate turned and headed back the way she’d come. Trauma didn’t follow-up on patients. Her job was to patch ’em up enough to survive heading upstairs. There, surgeons and specialists could evaluate her team’s work. Her group wasn’t sloppy or careless, but they weren’t plastic surgeons either.
A glance at a wall clock showed she was officially off shift for the night. Thank God.
Changing direction, she pointed toward the locker rooms. Clean. She just wanted to get clean and then…
Lola her best friend and main pain-in-the-ass skipped around the corner, smile glowing and wider than Kate had ever seen. Her friend skidded to a stop beside her. “So, I love you. A lot. You’re next on my ICE just below my mother, right?” In their circles, being a person’s number two and right under family was a huge expression of love. “But I’m gonna have to delay our post-shift gorge on waffles today. I’m auditioning someone for the position of number three.” Lola waggled her eyebrows.
“Number three? Really?”
Lola nodded and then leaned close, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Dr. McFuckMe asked me out for coffee. So,” she shrugged, “coffee and whatever.”
It was more the “whatever” that worried Kate. Lola deserved a good man more than most, and she worried Dr. McFuckMe was toying with her friend.
“Okay.” Kate nodded. “But call me and lemme know how it goes.”
That earned her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best.”
With that, her friend bounced off. How the he
ll did the woman have so much energy after hours on her feet?
Shaking her head, she got back to her journey, forcing one foot in front of the other. Just outside the locker room door, she realized she still clutched the vampire’s belongings. Demanding her muscles respond, she opened her hand and transferred the contents to her ungloved palm. It took less than a second to divest herself of the blood stained latex and dump it in a nearby biohazard bin. It’d been irresponsible to walk out of the ER with it still on, but the vampire’s presence had done something to her.
She just didn’t know what.
The man’s few effects were smeared with his own blood, the remnants now dry, and she ignored the red flakes. She held them in a tight fist as she pushed into the locker room.
Kate waved to the room en masse and went directly to her locker, fingers still clutching the vampire’s items. She didn’t want to release them. Not for a second. Getting her locker open with one hand full wasn’t exactly fun, but doable. And after a few minutes of struggling, she was back in her jeans and t-shirt with her comfy sneakers firmly in place. Yeah, she was still sweaty and probably more than a little ripe since she hadn’t taken a shower, but there were some things she couldn’t bring herself to do.
Communal showers were one of those things. When it came to getting naked in front of others, it didn’t matter that she was a highly intelligent, greatly praised doctor in her field. Because the letters M.D. did not make her extra jiggle magically disappear.
They did, however, earn her looks from other doctors. How could she possibly treat someone and regurgitate information about being healthy when she was obese? Their word, not hers. She preferred fluffy, like a cloud.
She also informed them that her last check-up indicated she was a very healthy fat person, thank you very much. Yes, she carried more weight than advisable on her five-seven frame, but her blood pressure was good and resting pulse was better. True, she wore jeans whose size ended in -teen, but her cholesterol was awesome. So, suck it. Well, not vamp suck it, but suck her non-existent dick.